The People's War Radio Show, Episode #36: Give us the land! Hands off the Bethesda African Cemetery!

Black Power Talks

The Moses African Cemetery in Bethesda, Maryland, holds the remains of hundreds of African people dating back to at least the 18th century.

Today the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition is fighting developers and Montgomery County to stop the desecration of the sacred site as bulldozers tear the land to build a self-storage compound.

We talk with Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and her husband Reverend Segun Adebayo about:

• The brutal colonial kidnapping and theft of human and intellectual capital from the world's original universities in Africa to build the tobacco agricultural industry of the U.S.'s mid-Atlantic region.
• The attack on and forced disappearance of a vibrant working class neighborhood of black farmers, quarry workers and small business owners that was initially founded in the years immediately after the end of chattel slavery - reminiscent of Tulsa, OK and Rosewood, FL.
• The work of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition - comprised of several concerned organizations and individuals - to protect the Moses African cemetery and build a museum on the historic site to tell the story of Africans in America.

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the Pulitzer prize-nominated author of No FEAR: A Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA, based on her work at the Environmental Protection Agency for almost 20 years, where she sought to stop the endangerment of African miners in Occupied Azania (South Africa).

Reverend Segun Adebayo is pastor of the Macedonia Baptist Church, the last remaining institution from the early community of Africans, custodian and protector of the Moses African Cemetery.

The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Muambi Tangu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.